


Conviction

by bamboo_astronaut (A_Lesbian_With_Pink_Hair)



Category: FAKE (Manga)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Praise Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-04
Packaged: 2018-08-19 10:49:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8202848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Lesbian_With_Pink_Hair/pseuds/bamboo_astronaut
Summary: How could I love anyone else,” Ryo says gently, “when you make me feel like this?”Dee asks, “Like this?”“Certain.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> So I was cleaning out my old book collection and one thing led to another and I found this old manga series I was really into as a kid and voila, have some gentle fluffy smut lined with sweet, sweet historical context.

It feels like it’s been years since they had a day off, and of course on that day off it rains. Raindrops roll quickly down the windows, and Ryo’s apartment is quiet, peaceful. The roar of the city is dulled by the weather, greyed by the clouds. Ryo takes a sip of his tea and sighs contentedly, turning the page of his book. Dee is laying on the couch, head in Ryo’s lap, dozing in and out. He looks so much younger asleep, Ryo thinks as he lays his book aside to run his fingers through his partner’s dark hair, brushing it off his sleeping face. He combs his fingers through, gently untangling knots and feeling the dark silky strands against his fingertips.

Dee stirs, tilts his cheek into Ryo’s hand greedily, presses a lazy kiss against the palm and then the wrist. He sighs.

“I love you,” he says, looking dreamy-eyed, and something warm and bright stirs in Ryo’s chest.

It’s been a week since Ryo told Dee that he loves him, and he does. Loves Dee’s bright energy, his persistence, his kind heart, his loyalty. Loves how Dee is unafraid to be himself, and unafraid to drag Ryo down the same honest path. Loves that Dee didn’t give up on him, despite how many times he could have.

Should have. Ryo frowns, and Dee sits up.

“Well that’s not the look I was _hoping for_ ,” he says, cradling Ryo’s face in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Ryo answers. “I was just… thinking.”

“You do that an awful lot, don’t you,” Dee smiles, gentle.

“I would have… I would have given up. If we’d been switched. If I had loved you and you hadn’t loved me back.”

“You do love me back.”

“But I didn’t… I mean I did, but I fought it. I said no, I said wait, I said stop a thousand times. And if I had been rejected again and again, I’m not sure I would have kept loving you. I don’t… Sometimes I don’t understand you.”

Dee sighs, twists his body to rest his legs across Ryo’s lap, and grins.

“Well… One day, I almost did. Maybe you remember. You said you were sorry, and I… I was going to get over you. I told myself I couldn’t do it anymore. But then that crazy asshole blew up the school and shot me and the next thing I knew, you were kissing me and holding me and I just… I knew that even if I gave up on you, even if I stopped… I would still feel it. Even if I let you go, I would feel what I feel. So… it was wrong of me to ignore your “no” and your “stop” and I tried, and I still felt it, and I just… I know it was selfish. I know I can be selfish. But I knew I needed you, and if I stopped trying, I would regret it.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Well, yeah,” Dee says, eyes green like Central Park in the spring. “Loving you is the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I mean, our path hasn’t been easy, I guess. But like, what I mean is… loving you feels as natural as breathing, to me.”

Ryo flushes and looks away, looks at the rain sailing around in the wind, distantly hopes Bikky’s recently-rebuilt school doesn’t lose power in the storm, that he won’t need to be picked up.

“Hey, I know that look,” Dee says, hand on Ryo’s chin, making him face him. “You’re distracting yourself from something. Don’t you think you’ve done that plenty?”

“I just… Even after everything that happened between us, and after all the—the bullshit and the whole thing with Leo and—I guess I don’t understand how could you still want me after all that.”

“Ryo. Buddy. I’ve been waiting for you my whole fucking life,” Dee says gently. “I wasn’t gonna let you go just because you were a little scared.”

Ryo shakes his head. “I mean, I was a young man during the AIDS crisis, Dee. I remember the newspaper articles, I remember my aunt’s friend Jerry wasting away to nothing. The president doing nothing. ‘The Gay Plague’, the jeering religious nuts. I remember when the idea of being gay was so tied up in all that… do you remember?”

Dee’s face darkens. “I remember.”

“I’ve been so scared for so long, and you’re so… How could I ever…” Ryo trails off, lost for words. Dee isn’t afraid to be himself. Ryo always has been.

“Don’t you worry, baby,” Dee says gently. “We’re both healthy, and we’ve got each other, and who cares what the newspaper says. I’m going to take care of you.”

“ _Dee_.”

“You take care of _everyone_. Bikky, Carol, me. Whoever needs you.  But never yourself. So let me take care of you, yeah?”

Ryo blushes again. “I… I guess…”

“Forever. I’m serious right now.”

Ryo knows Dee is serious. He nods. “I’ll hold you to that, Detective Laytner.”

Dee grins. “I’m counting on it, Detective Maclean.”

Dee moves and straddles Ryo’s legs, knees digging into the couch, buries his hands in Ryo’s soft hair and kisses him thoroughly, the kind of kiss that makes Ryo feel like he would float away if Dee wasn’t holding him fast to the earth. Dee wants him to feel this, so he closes his eyes and he feels it.

Love had always been a vague, distant promise, that one day he’d meet a girl, one day he’d settle down, one day he’d have kids, take a desk job, be a father and a husband. But he did it all out of order; he hit 28, adopted a kid from a case, and fell in love with his partner, years before he’s ready to spend all his time behind a desk.

And loving Dee has not been easy. He remembers the newspaper articles. He remembered his aunt’s friend Jerry and his partner Darnell, kept out of his hospital room as his lover wasted to nothing alone in a bed. He remembered the promise of a kid and a wife, of flying under the radar, of ignoring that twisting wrongness in his gut, of passing, of surviving. Remembers the crap with Rose and Leo and the murderer all the way in the UK, the close calls, the late nights…

But Dee never let him pass as anything. Calls him _Ryo_ instead of _Randy._ Likes him better that way. Ryo does too. Dee always drives Ryo to be exactly who he is, and no less. Scared sometimes, but himself. And he fought it and fought it but ultimately the truth is this: he belongs here, in this city, in this apartment, on this rainy day, with this man.

Dee kisses the corner of his mouth, his cheeks, his eyelids, laves his tongue on the curve of his ear and Ryo sighs and shifts.

“Still can’t believe it,” Dee murmurs, lips brushing his ear as he smooths his hands down Ryo’s chest. “Still can’t believe this is real. Every time I go to sleep I think, when I wake up again, he’ll be on the other side of that wall, he won’t want me anymore—“

“S’real,” Ryo says, breathing harder as Dee’s hands slide under his sweater. “I’m yours.”

Dee groans, steals another kiss, and says in a gravelly voice, “say it again.”

“I’m yours, Dee,” Ryo says, louder, surer. Hasn’t he always been? Dee’s partner, Dee’s friend, Dee’s confidante, Dee’s protector, and now Dee’s lover. He’s always been his.

“Mine…” Dee breathes out, eyes shining with something Ryo can’t place. He sucks a bruise onto the side of Ryo’s throat and then stands shakily on his bare feet.

“C’mon,” he says.

Ryo feels a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Where might we be going?”

Dee grins, leering at him. “Do you want me to ravish you on the couch? I can do couch if you want to do couch.”

Ryo does not, in fact, want to do anything on the couch, so he follows Dee into the bedroom. Dee yanks his own shirt off, drops it, and watches Ryo sit down on the edge of the bed looking rather like the cat that got the cream. And, Ryo supposes, he is.

Dee walks over, stands between Ryo’s legs, and drops to his knees on the floor. His eyes are hungry, and silently he divests Ryo of his sweater, lets his hand slide appreciatively over Ryo’s chest, and leans in to taste. He mouths over the muscles, the curves and lines of him, bites gently at Ryo’s nipples just to hear him yelp. Ryo reaches for Dee, to reciprocate, to touch him, but Dee shakes his head, leans out of reach.

“Lay down for me, baby,” he says, voice low in his chest, and usually Dee would just shove him down where he wants him, and usually Ryo would object to the pet name, but the warmth swelling in his chest keeps him quiet as he backs up, leans back against the pillows, remains pliant as Dee stands up, leans over him, guides his arms up and over his head. Dee grabs a tie from the floor, discarded there after a long shift and not yet taken to be laundered, and loops it around Ryo’s wrists before securing it to the headboard.

“Is this okay?” Dee asks.

Ryo nods.

“Awesome. Need to hear you say it though, babe.”

“I’m okay…” Ryo swallows. He is okay, but he’s nervous, and this is new. He’s used to Dee being quick and energetic and rough, and he hasn’t disliked that so far, but this is not the same, this is something harder to pin down. Maybe it’s the rain, or the serious conversation, or maybe it’s something else but Dee seems slowed down, reverent, awed. Ryo tugs at the tie; if he had to, pulling hard on it would free him instantly. But he doesn’t have to, and he doesn’t want to, so he watches Dee decide what’s next.

Dee leans down to kiss him, and Dee always kisses like he wants to breathe all of Ryo in and hold him there, like he’s desperate for it, like it might be their last kiss. And, for a long time, each kiss might have been the last one. Ryo doesn’t regret pushing Dee away for so long; allowing himself to be overwhelmed even by someone he loved would have been awful, irreconcilable even. So he thought and thought and thought, and took a little advice from Diana, and found his truth. He couldn’t spend his whole life running from something that desperately needed to be a part of it. He lets Dee lead him, tastes nicotine and afternoon coffee in his lover’s mouth, and finds himself breathless when Dee pulls away to leave worshipful kisses against his skin, sucking more love bites on his chest and belly, muscles jumping when he does. Dee rolls one of his nipples between his thumb and pointer finger, pinching until he gets a soft moan from Ryo above him.

Dee seems to almost purr in response, unbuttons Ryo’s jeans and drags them down his legs along with his underwear. Ryo is hard and leaking already, and Dee licks his lips.

“Christ you’re gorgeous,” Dee says, running a hand through the hair that has fallen into his face. “Just, really, god, I can’t believe you’re _here._ ”

“Th-this is my apartment, you know…”

“Shut up, you know what I mean… just, fuck, look at you, all tied up and hard for me…” Dee rubs a circle against one of Ryo’s shins with his thumb, and Ryo does all he can to keep from turning his face into the sheets to hide his flush. But it’s a little late now, he admits to himself, to be hiding.

“Ryo…” he sighs softly, pressing a kiss to the arch of one of Ryo’s feet. “I thought, you know, when you first walked in, how can a guy be that pretty? I’ve wanted… god, I can’t remember all of it now. Shoulda written it down maybe?”

“You know you don’t, ah, you don’t have to sweet talk me, pal. I’m already here.”

Dee tilts his head and grins. “Feeling a little self-conscious, Ryo? Well maybe I like sweet talkin’ you, baby. I just think, you know… I can finally, _finally_ , take my time. You think you like it _fast,_ well, buddy, you ain’t seen nothing yet… I wanna tell you all of it, everything…” He reaches into the bedside table where he stashed a few supplies and pulls out a bottle, methodically spreading the lubricant onto his fingers. With his clean hand he slides his fingers up Ryo’s leg, brushing against the soft skin of his thighs, pushes one of Ryo’s legs back against his chest, reaches for Ryo’s dick with his slippery hand.

Ryo makes a soft little whining noise and flexes against the silk wrapped around his wrists. He’s at Dee’s mercy now, and his mind is getting fuzzy at the corners.

“Like that. You make such pretty noises, and I wanna be the only one who ever hears ‘em again. So I figure, to keep someone like you…” He rubs his thumb against the slit, smearing precum over the head of Ryo’s cock. His movements are slow, tortuous, almost like an afterthought. “I figure, I better do a damn good job. Better earn it.”

“You don’t have to,” Ryo gasps, rolling his hips against Dee’s slow ministrations. “I’m yours, I want to be with you, just you, please…”

Dee smiles at that, rewards it with a twist of his hand. “I know, baby. But I told you, I’m gonna take care of you. I want to. Won’t you let me do that for you?”

He asks it so innocently, as if Ryo could say no, as if he would. Ryo nods, blush spreading down his neck and across his chest.

Dee’s hand releases Ryo’s dick, and Ryo groans. Dee shushes him, fingers teasing against the sensitive skin between his entrance and his balls. Ryo squirms; he’s still not used to being fucked, and Dee’s usually in a hurry to get to the main event, but today is very different and it seems like they have all the time in the world. Dee still has his jeans on, even. It feels like time has slowed to a crawl. One finger rubs slick over Ryo’s entrance and Ryo positively whimpers.

“That’s it. Let me in,” Dee whispers as he slides one long finger inside of him molasses-slow. “I’m the only person who ever saw you like this, the only one who’s ever done this to you…” He pumps his finger slowly, and Ryo knows he’s breathing hard. He feels hyperfocused on Dee, and his words, and his goddamn hands.

“I know I’ve stolen a lot of kisses from you, maybe some you didn’t want to give me… I was selfish about it, about you, but even now I can’t honestly tell you I’m sorry I did it, any of it… From the moment I saw you… Fuck, you were so gorgeous I couldn’t believe it, I wanted to know everything about you, and then you were so goddamn _kind_ and _smart…_ Did I ever tell you any of this?”

“I… fuck, no, but I remember you, ah, nngh…” Ryo trails off, distracted by Dee’s hands.

“You remember?”

“You asked if I would love you,” he says, flushed.

“I did. I wanted you to. Love me, I mean. I never felt like that about anyone in my life before,” Dee says.

“Like what?”

“ _Certain_.”

Ryo grunts as Dee crooks the finger inside of him, searching for that bundle of nerves that makes Ryo feel shaky and weak and good.

“You want another?” Dee asks.

“ _Yes_ ,” Ryo groans. “Please, Dee, I want—I want you.”

Dee shudders. “After you kissed me at the school, I knew I would have waited a hundred years for you to say that to me. All I wanted, for so long, love you so fucking much…” He drips more slick onto his fingers and returns to Ryo’s hole with two, slides them so slowly Ryo feels like he might burn up before the rain even stops outside. He’s never felt like this, feverish but good, loved and cherished and wanted, in some ways he still doesn’t understand, but knows he will in time.

Ryo lets his legs open wider, and he’s beyond red in the face, but Dee leans down and kisses the soft skin of his inner thigh in gratitude.

With his free hand Dee resumes that slow jerking of Ryo’s cock, and Ryo gasps and moans as Dee’s fingers rub up against his prostate again and again, sending waves of pleasure crashing through him.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Ryo whines. “Fuck, Dee, I’m…”

“You feel good, Ryo? I wanna make you feel like this forever, I wanna make love to you, again and again like you deserve, go out to nice places and show you off to everyone, make the whole world jealous… fuck, you think we could go somewhere and get married? There’s gotta be somewhere we can…”

“Y-you know what, why don’t we, ungh, talk about that ah-another time, Dee,” Ryo says. He can’t think straight, with Dee’s fingers and his hands and his _mouth…_  He twists against the restraints, and Dee smiles at the twisted silk tie around Ryo’s wrists.

“Yeah, you wanna touch me too? I know, because you want to make me feel good, but I just wanna touch you like this for a while, okay? You look so good all tied up for me, desperate for it… Wanted to do this forever, make you feel nice like this…”

“I can’t, I… Dee, I need to…”

Dee shushes him gently, adds a third finger, and Ryo nearly screams, stifling it to sharp gasps and groans.

“Shh. You can, I know you can,” Dee says gently. “I know it’s a lot. But you can take it, Ryo… let me take care of you, I promise it’ll be so good for you, just…”

Dee’s rhythm gradually increases, fingers stretching inside of Ryo, aiming carefully against that spot inside of him, stroking against the walls of his body, fist tightening around Ryo’s cock, leaking precome like a tap.

“That’s it,” Dee coos. Ryo feels like he’s shaking apart, like he’s burning up, like he never wants it to stop; his eyes are tearing up, his eyelashes wet and his chest heaving as he tries to breathe enough air. He’s making soft little overwhelmed noises that he can’t stop, and Dee seems to like that. No one else, he thinks, no one else could ever see him like this, no one else could ever make him feel this intensity, this brightness, this flood of need and affection in equal measure.

“Okay, baby. You ready to come for me?”

“Please, please, Dee, I’m—I—“ Ryo can barely speak, his brain boiled down to just Dee’s name and fervent heated desire.

“Yeah, it’s okay, I’ve got you, I’ve always got you, come on baby, come on, come for me, Ryo—“

And Ryo comes with a cry, arching his back as he spills all over Dee’s waiting hand. Dee strokes him through his orgasm, and when he comes down from it and curls away, oversensitive, Dee’s fingers slide out of him and guide his shaking legs down to rest.

Immediately Dee wipes his hand on his jeans and reaches up to untie his partner, gathers Ryo up in his arms, wipes tears from his eyes, and brushes blond hair back from Ryo’s sweaty face. He holds him until Ryo stirs a moment later, determinately unzipping Dee’s jeans and sliding them down just enough to free his aching hard-on. Ryo licks the palm of his hand, dirty, and jerks Dee hard and fast, leaning over to whisper, “I love you,” over and over, hot breath against his ear, until Dee comes with a low moan in his hand.

“Hoooooly shit,” Dee finally says, pressing a kiss to Ryo’s sweaty forehead.

“Agreed,” Ryo answers, voice thick with effort, face pressed into the pillows, exhausted.

“That was good. You were so hot, Ryo.”

“My god. Holy crap.”

Dee laughs softly. “Oh, sweetheart, just wait till I get my mouth down there.”

“Ugh. You’re going to kill me, this is how I’m going to die.”

“Yep, and you’ll be beggin’ for it the whole way too.”

“Christ, Dee, where the hell did you learn this shit?”

Dee laughs. “Here and there. Some pretty girls, some pretty boys, a few who were neither. It doesn’t really matter. Everything before you doesn’t matter.”

“That can’t be healthy. Or true.”

“Whatever, let me enjoy my sex high in peace, dude.”

Ryo laughs too, heaving himself up to rest against Dee’s chest. He can hear Dee’s heartbeat, and he closes his eyes and listens.

There’s nothing scary about this. He feels good, like he’s floating, he feels important and cherished. They are healthy, and in love, and happy, and it’s nothing like all the things he had feared. Ryo feels safer than he’s felt in years.

“Dee.”

“Mm, what?”

“I love you.”

Dee smiles, eyes soft. “I’ll never get tired of that. I still… I can’t always read you, man. But I imagined this so many ways, and for so long...”

“Real is better.”

“Real is way better. I love you, Ryo, I really… I know I’m not always the best with feelings and shit, but I swear, I’ve never loved anyone even close to how I love you. I want to do everything with you. Not just the sex, which, for the record, I want to do _a lot._ No, but like. Wanna travel and go antiquing and fight a ton of crime and, I dunno, like, renovate a house? Whatever. All of it. Anything you want. I’m babbling, I’m gonna shut up.”

“I do think…” Ryo pauses, looking for the words. “I do think you’re being silly though, when you tell me you have to try to _keep me_.”

“How is that silly? Every other guy we meet totally falls in love with you. Look at you, dude!” Dee exclaims, gesturing at Ryo’s gorgeous face.

“Look at _me?_ ” Ryo murmurs, and his partner quiets a little. Ryo smiles, and Dee smiles back. “I wonder though. How could you think I might fall in love with someone else someday?” Ryo stares at Dee, eyes intense and dark. 

“I…”

“How could I love anyone else,” Ryo says gently, “when you make me feel like _this?_ ”

Dee’s breath catches in his throat. Ryo is so fucking beautiful and unbearably good. In his eyes Dee sees everything he never knew he wanted until the day Ryo walked into the 29th Precinct. He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.

Dee asks, “Like this?”

Ryo echoes, “ _Certain.”_

Dee presses his lips against Ryo’s gently, tenderly, and Ryo’s heart aches with it. He feels loved, wanted, and home.

Ryo closes his eyes and he sees a future. A future where his aunt’s friends could have gotten married in all fifty states, a future where the president could support the gay community, a future where a conflicted young boy could turn on the tv and see gay and bisexual people happy and whole, and know in his heart that he was deserving of love.

“I want something,” Ryo says, gentle.

“Name it, and it’s yours, pal,” Dee answers with a smile.

“Move in with me.”

“What?”

Dee’s face grows serious rapidly, eyebrows knitting together.

“I want you to move in with me, I want us to live together,” Ryo says. “I know, I mean, I guess it’s kind of fast? I know it’s only been a week since we… well, I don’t know exactly, but I feel—I feel like, I already love you more than I really thought I would love anyone. And I don’t want anyone else. There’s not gonna be an after this. There’s just… us.” Ryo tilts his head, bashful. “So I want you to move in with me. We can be a family together. That’s what I want. Is that… what you want?”

“Fuck yes,” Dee breathes out softly, eyes sparkling with emotion and sincerity. “Yeah. That’s what I want too.”

Ryo draws Dee in to kiss him, and Dee kisses him thoroughly and sweet, like he can push all the love he feels inside him out through his lips and tongue and teeth. Ryo responds in kind, arms curling around his partner, legs tangled together under the blankets. That warm, bright feeling in Ryo’s chest is there as Dee clings to him tightly, kisses him until they’re dizzy with it, and they both feel the same way.

There is a future for them together, and it is beautiful.

The rain slows to a drizzle outside the window.


End file.
